1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates generally to an system and method for telephone services, and more particularly to debit card sales transactions and to the activation of debit cards by a customer for point-of-sale purchases including cellular phone purchases and activation of same.
2. Background Art
The prepaid phone card industry has been established for over twenty (20) years and in Europe alone is a nine billion dollar industry. In just a few years in the United States, the industry has grown to over one billion dollars in revenue with reliable market projections of ten billion by the year 2000. The market includes all types of retail establishments with large foot traffic, the hospitality industry, hospitals, universities and membership clubs such as the YMCA and AAA.
There is a need in the retail industry to provide an inexpensive way of providing purchasing options to customers without the need for high capital investment by the retailer. Further, there is a need to provide alternatives to credit card or check use for the customer for his payment of goods and services without the concern for fraud or excessive service costs. There is a particular need in the smaller specialty stores which number 2.7 million of which only 60,000 have point-of-sale (POS) debit capability. By way of example, these stores typically only offer credit card and cash payment options. In the United States, networks have a card base of 224 million ATM card holders. Of these card holders, 80 million do not have credit cards. In 1993, there were 386 million POS debit transactions. In 1994, there were 614 million transactions. In 1995, there were 918 million transactions. The industry is growing at approximately 50% on an annual basis, as projected in Faulkner and Grey Card Industry Directory, 1996. Canada had a 90% increase in POS debit sales from 1994 to 1995. The industry is expected to increase 50% a year over the next 10 years. The present invention satisfies these needs.